So why the homecoming? Because I wrote the Jake column for a few years in the late 1990s. I’ve just spent time re-reading a lot of the guy wisdom I shared back then and realized a few of things: First, I still have a crush on a cover model named Yamila. Second, those perfume inserts still smell after 18 years. Third, knowing what I know now after working on The Chemistry Between Us, I’d make a few revisions.

For example, in 1996, I asked for forgiveness for all those times men think they’re getting a message you want sex, but you don’t. (I cited a set of “tells” I relied on, including toe-cleavage.) Well, it turns out we might be getting those signals right, after all. Science is showing that around the time of ovulation, women can be flirtier, wear sexier clothes (including heels with toe cleavage!) and even change facial and body traits even if they’re not aware of any of that. So maybe men are getting the right message, just one you don’t know you’re sending.

But I think there were also times I went wrong in a more general sense.

For example, I now know that I grossly underestimated the power of sex. Make no mistake, I was definitely in favor. But I didn’t grasp how powerful sex can be, how it’s effect on our brains can lead us into the biggest decisions of our lives. We’ll even wear cap sleeves because a woman we’re having sex with said our arms looked good in them. (That was a thing then. I’ve tired to forget it, but I can’t.)

I’m also less positive about some of the judgments I made. If you’d stopped having sex with your boyfriend or husband, for instance, one of you just wasn’t trying hard enough. Well, now I know that trying is good, and can work, but that our brains conspire against hot sex in long-term relationships no matter how big a lingerie bill you run up.

I know why sexual monogamy and long-term love can be two different things, though we almost always conflate them. I know why people feel miserable even if they were the dumpers and not the dumpees. I once warned women to never get involved with a guy pal who’s recently broken up because it could never work out and then the friendship would be ruined. Then I had a renowned scientist, an addiction expert--love is an addiction, by the way--tell me that the best way to get over a lost love is to find another one, that rebounds can work out.

Over the course of my Jake-dom, I gave the impression that relationships were a matter of control. If you took the right steps, adopted the right system, most of love’s challenges could be navigated with little turbulence.

Well, it turns out there is a system, but we’re mostly unaware of how it works. From my deep dive into the “love brain,” I’ve learned we all have much less control over our desires, over love, over all the nutty behaviors we do when we’re trying to navigate romance.

That’s scary and even dark sometimes, but wonderful, too.

Over the next few weeks right here on Smitten, I'll do my best to answer any love, dating, and relationship questions you throw my way. Leave them in the comments below or submit them here. Oh, and feel free to follow me on Twitter @brianralexander.